The Devouring Read online

  Both boys needed a moment to catch their breath. Then Jack picked up his phone and held it over the scepter. For the first time they could get a good look at it. The water had stripped away the layers of dirt and grime. Now, it was obvious that the object was made of pure gold, resembling a tent spike. One end was flat and inscribed with a swastika. The shaft had seven smooth sides that converged to its intimidating razor-sharp point; several of the sides had strange markings that resembled a Latin script. However, a few of the faces of the shaft seemed to have been filed off. One thing was certain: the artifact was beautiful.

  “What is this? A weapon?” Jack asked with wonder.

  “It’s a nail.”

  “What are you talking about? This is no nail,” Jack said in bewilderment.

  “My great-aunt’s spirit spoke to me. She said that only I could see it through the black waters,” Mila explained, his tone becoming solemn.

  “How’s that possible?”

  “Because my aunt just died,” Mila replied. “I can feel it.”

  Jack didn’t argue or ask how Mila knew, he put his logic aside for a moment and said, “I’m sorry, Mila.”

  Mila swallowed hard, avoiding Jack’s eyes as he handed him the nail. Jack could tell he was holding back tears.

  “Let’s get back to the hospital,” Jack said, trying to steer the conversation elsewhere. He turned and headed toward Bundestag Station.

  The two boys ran back toward the station, but just before they got there, they noticed that barricades had been put up, and several metro police were blocking their exit. If they continued on, they would surely be noticed and questioned. Mila was starting to believe that the closing of the station had nothing to do with Lady Luck.

  Having no choice, they turned back and headed toward the larger station in the hope that its tunnel wasn’t also blockaded. They crept toward the platform, staying low. Fortunately, there were no police at this exit. The boys got up on the ledge and reached the platform. In the distance, they noticed two men with long blond hair, definitely not metro police, and a much older man, in his late seventies at least. He was dressed in a black trench coat and wore an armband matching those of the other men. The older man seemed to be in charge. He was deep in serious conversation with an official in a conductor’s uniform.

  Nobody was looking in Mila and Jack’s direction, so the boys made use of the opportunity to creep a bit closer. Instinctively, Mila used the nearest pillar as cover. Jack followed suit. Once at the whisper corner. Mila peered around the side of the pillar. He spotted Stephan, Rosa, and Jolly, handcuffed and on their knees. Mila noticed Jolly had a black eye.

  “Something is going on,” Mila whispered. “Those are my cousins. They arrested my cousins.”

  “Who? Why?” Jack asked.

  “Shhhh,” Mila said as he pressed his ear to the whisper corner to hear what was going on.

  “…it’s not a matter of money. We can’t keep this subway line closed any longer,” the station official said. “I’m sorry, Mr. Strauss, but your team needs to be out in ten minutes.”

  With that, the conductor walked away, leaving the station through the main staircase. As he left, another man came in. Much to Mila’s surprise, it was Father Leichman. For a moment, Mila had the naive thought that he was going to negotiate for his cousins’ release. As usual. Mila could tell the priest was angry. He could almost feel it, like the heat of a furnace.

  As they approached, one of the guards began interrogating Stephan. He kicked Stephan over onto his back and pinned Stephan’s hands beneath his boot-clad foot. With the boy pinned, the guard drew his baton and raised it threateningly, as if about to slam it down and shatter Stephan’s fingers. Leichman’s thin hand darted out like a claw and stopped him.

  “My good man,” the boys heard the priest say, “that is no way to get him to tell the truth. You can’t use pain to persuade a Gypsy. They’re used to pain.”

  Father Leichman turned away and snapped his fingers, summoning someone off in the distance. A guard with same arm band appeared, guiding Korey and Petre toward the priest.

  “This is not good,” Mila whispered to Jack.

  “Family is everything to them,” Leichman continued. “The safety of their family is far more important to any Gypsy than his own well-being.” He turned to Stephan. “We are running out of time, Stephan! Now, for the last time, which tunnel did the Americans run into?”

  “What Americans?” Stephan answered.

  “Stephan, I’ve known you since you were a little boy, and I know it will take very strong motivation to get the truth out of you. This gives me an advantage. At this moment, we are holding your two brothers. Such beautiful boys, Korey and Petre. You know, I baptized both of them myself. Such a shame. Here is what we will do: you tell me which tunnel to search in, and in exchange, I will let you keep one of your kin.”

  Mila was puzzled at this offer. Its meaning didn’t quite sink in. Going over the words in his mind, he placed his ear right against the pillar. Perhaps he hadn’t heard Father Leichman correctly.

  Bang!

  A gunshot shattered the silence in the hall of the station and echoed off its high arched pillars. His ears nearly burst. All he could hear was a deafening ringing. Mila clenched his eyes shut instinctively. He heard Rosa scream, followed by sobbing coming from Stephan, Jolly, and Petre.

  Jack whispered, “Oh my God …” Although Mila was too terrified to open his eyes, he did so, praying that his assumption was not—

  “No!” Mila screamed. “No!”

  The horrible scene in the now-quiet corner of the huge structure came into view. The man in black held a smoking service pistol in his right hand. Korey’s small body lay motionless at his feet, like a pile of rags, as still and silent in death as he had been beloved and animated in life. A red trail of blood oozed out of the child’s head and dripped onto the stone floor.

  Again, Mila screamed, “No! No!”

  The priest looked straight at Mila, and their eyes locked for a split second. Then Mila felt a tug on his sleeve as Jack pulled him away from the horrific scene. They both began to run as Mila spotted Stephan and Jolly, still in handcuffs, lunge at the shooter, butting him with their shoulders and knocking him to the floor. Rosa picked her handcuffs, grabbed Korey, and ran to the opposite exit.

  Soon, the two guards in the black suits were in hot pursuit. Luckily, thanks to Jolly and Stephan, Mila and Jack had a head start. They ran out of the station as fast as they could toward Bundestag, the guards about 20 feet behind and gaining fast. The rain had let up to a slight drizzle. Jack spotted a crowded street festival and pulled Mila into a large crowd of people holding umbrellas. In no time, the boys blended in to the thousands of covered shoppers. A few moments later, assuming the coast was clear, they ducked into an alley to catch their breaths.

  “Should we go back for the motorcycle?” asked Jack, almost out of breath.

  “It’s too risky,” Mila said, exhausted and bewildered. “Besides, the hospital is only a few blocks away.” Then he sank to his knees on the pavement. The image of his dead cousin burned in his brain. He clutched his forehead, his hands covering his eyes, trying to stop the pain that flamed and flared inside his head. “Why … why?” he cried in agony.

  “It’s not your fault, Mila,” Jack told him.

  Mila didn’t want to hear a word. He turned his head away from the other boy as if nothing could comfort him. He just wanted the pain that now burned inside his whole body to stop.

  “Hey, listen to me!” Jack said in a stronger voice. “It’s not your fault,” he repeated. He crouched next to his new friend and placed his hand on Mila’s shoulder as the Gypsy boy fought back tears. “I can’t believe what just happened. But I know you didn’t make it happen,” Jack said with conviction. “I had no idea what it’s like for the Romani people. To tell you the truth, I didn’t care.”<
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  Still fighting tears, Mila opened his eyes and silently looked at Jack.

  “We can’t let those bastards get away with this!” Jack said. He pulled the nail from the motorcycle bag and handed it to Mila.

  Mila took hold of the object and began to examine it. The pain inside him shifted from grief to painful purpose.

  “This is what they want. I don’t know why,” he told Jack. He looked back at the nail again. “What’s so special about you?” he said, speaking to the nail itself as if it were alive and could answer him. “Why would a man of God kill an innocent little child for you?”

  “What are we going to do?” Jack asked.

  Just then Jack’s cellphone began to beep again. He pulled it out of his pocket, and they both looked at the glowing screen. There were several missed calls from Mr. Garson and one text message that read only: Urgent - Deborah.

  The boys looked back and forth from the phone to the nail. Then Mila stood up, fists clenched in defiance. “Let’s find out what my cousin died for.”

  XII

  The Mossad

  “What about Berlin Schönefeld? Can you land there?”

  “Ms. Musef, they’re rerouting every aircraft in a ten-mile radius. We’re going to have to land in Munich. Have you tried a train—”

  Deborah slammed down the clunky hospital phone before the private jet’s pilot could finish. She missed the days when a simple phone call could get her anything from a medevac helicopter to a drone strike. With nothing left to do, she sighed and sat on a window ledge in Intensive Care Unit Three. The scent of alcohol and bleach filled the room. The gradually slowing beep of Casey’s heart monitor was a constant reminder of yet another failed mission. As Deborah gazed out the window of the dreary hospital room, she watched the raindrops trickle down the window and thought of her father.

  “All people have a duty to their beliefs, and they must live by their beliefs and ultimately fight for them,” her father would often say. It was his credo. She loved her father deeply and wanted to make him proud. But this city and her connection to it only reminded Deborah of her family’s struggles and achievements, which she could never live up to.

  Her grandparents had emigrated from Germany to what was then Palestine: unlike many other victims of the Holocaust, they had survived to become pioneers in building the State of Israel. She wondered if her grandfather would be proud of her. How could he? A man who had helped to lay the foundations for the new Israeli homeland. A man who had assisted in the creation of the Israeli Secret Service: Mossad, the most advanced intelligence agency on earth. A man whose exploits aided in the capture of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. How could such a man be proud of her?

  And what about her father? A military genius, he had fought in the Israeli Six-Day War and helped hunt down the conspirators and murderers of Black Friday. How could she even dare to compare herself to him? She couldn’t live up to his accomplishments; she couldn’t even remember his advice when it mattered most.

  “Never mistake wishful thinking for instincts,” she could hear him say. “Let your instincts help you when the facts give no clear answer. But don’t use your instincts as an excuse to ignore the facts.” Her father had told her all those things on the day she was made a field agent. But she had failed to follow—or even remember—his wise advice.

  Her thoughts drifted to the last time she’d been in Berlin, what seemed like a lifetime ago. Rumors had circulated of a German industrialist funneling money to terror cells in Lebanon. Her team never found substantial evidence, but a kill order came through, nonetheless.

  The assassination was a disastrous failure. Deborah would often play it over in her mind, wondering how it might have gone differently. Who knows? That’s no longer my life, she thought. I’m no longer a Mossad agent, and I no longer trust my instincts. They failed me in the job that I loved and with the man I loved. Hopeless tears began to fill her eyes.

  Suddenly, the door of the small room swung open. Deborah wiped the tears away as three men walked in. All wore scrubs, and medical masks covered their noses and mouths as if they were in an operating room about to begin surgery. The tallest of the three wore a white lab coat over his scrubs and a stethoscope around his neck. He had the air of someone not wearing his everyday, professional clothing, but rather a doctor’s Halloween costume.

  “These men are from the health department,” said the tall man dressed like a doctor, his voice muffled by the mask. He gestured at the other two men.

  Extending her hand to shake each of theirs in turn, she noticed the men wore gloves: not hospital-grade surgical gloves, but thin, cheap latex like one might buy at a pharmacy. She could see through the translucent material to an ornate tattoo on one man’s right wrist. The unusual marking triggered her memory. She’d seen it before, she was sure of that. But where?

  “They have some disturbing news about this young lady,” the tall man said. “She has been exposed to a rare disease, and I’m afraid some hospital staff have been exposed as well.”

  The group now had Deborah’s full attention. She shifted her gaze from one to the other. She couldn’t see their expressions, only their eyes above the masks. But that was enough. For Deborah, the eyes were the most telling part of the face.

  “What is the disease? And what about the other young people she’s been in contact with?” Deborah asked, looking from one official to another and then to the tall man. “And who are you?”

  “I’m a doctor,” the man said shortly, not giving his name but instead moving on to respond to her earlier questions. “The disease displays the characteristic symptoms of the Ebola virus. That is the preliminary diagnosis. Of course, we are concerned about the other students. We contacted their teacher, Mr. Garson, but unfortunately, he and the group have already left the city. We reached him by cell phone on a train with the rest of the students en route to Vienna.”

  Deborah paused, processing the information quickly. Ebola? How is that possible? There’s no record of any Ebola cases in Germany right now. How could Casey have possibly been exposed to Ebola here? Years of training kicked in, and she asked herself, What would be the normal reaction? She pasted a shocked, gullible look on her face.

  “Oh, my, how awful!” she exclaimed. “Are you saying this poor girl may have Ebola? Well, thank goodness your city’s wonderful hospital and health department are at the ready to deal with this crisis,” she flattered the men.

  The doctor’s eyes narrowed above his mask. The other two men were strangely silent as they stood ominously at the other man’s side. Nothing feels right about this, Deborah thought as she tried to keep suspicion from showing in her face.

  “Ms. Musef, you’ve already been exposed to the disease just by being in this room. You must immediately scrub up and change into protective gear. The patient’s nurse is just outside. She will assist you,” the tall man said.

  One of the other men spoke. “The girl has been in contact with Gypsies,” he said. “They are carriers of this disease.”

  “It’s a dangerous bug those people carry,” the other added.

  What health department official uses the word “bug” to describe a deadly virus? Deborah thought. And the way he said, “those people”—she couldn’t miss the contempt in his choice of words and the tone of his voice.

  The two health officials stood at attention, their eyes cold and empty. One of the two was completely still, while the other man steadily clenched and unclenched his fists. Deborah recognized his movements as nervous, even frightened behavior. The facts of the situation were ambiguous, but Deborah’s instincts told her to get ready for trouble.

  “If you’ll please come with us,” the doctor said.

  “I’m sorry, Doctor, I’m not going to leave Ms. Richards. You see, I’m very close to her family back in the States. I feel I have to stay here with her, especially since her relatives’ flights were cancele
d because of the storm,” Deborah explained.

  “Certainly, I understand. I can send the nurse in with the protective clothing. Now, if you will excuse me, I’ll get her.”

  The doctor turned to leave. One of the other men reached out to open the door for him, and as he did so, his sleeve slipped back to reveal an intricate tattoo on his wrist: the same as his companion’s. This time Deborah got a clear look at the design: a twisted red ribbon pierced by a sword. Her heart began to race, but true to many years of training, she appeared calm and relaxed, or as calm as someone would be who had just received the upsetting news about Casey’s supposed infection with Ebola.

  The man closed the door and returned to stand next to his companion. Deborah turned unobtrusively and moved closer to Casey’s bedside. Uneasy, she glanced at the medical monitors, using the reflections in the screens to see what was happening behind her. A few moments passed, and the men did nothing but stand there. Wrong again, she thought. She relaxed a bit and her mind wandered off to Jack. Where could he have gone? she wondered. She took a quick look over at the monitor again. The reflection revealed that one of the men was now right behind her.

  She knew by instinct that her neck would be his first target. He raised one hand and moved to hook it around for a choke hold. Deborah had only a split second to act. As his hand crossed her shoulder, she bent at the knees and seized her attacker’s wrist with both hands. With her grip locked she stood up, snapping the man’s arm over her shoulder as easily as breaking a twig. He cried out in pain and she pivoted, pulling his mangled arm behind him. She reached to his waist and found a pistol tucked in his waistband. In one swift motion, she drew the weapon while holding her attacker as a human shield.

  The other man had drawn a pistol of his own. He struggled to aim properly. A million scenarios went through Deborah’s mind. Are they here for me? she wondered. Could this be something from her past work? No, they were too sloppy, too clumsy. Only a fool would send such poorly trained men after an ex-Mossad field agent. Her focus remained on the armed man as she contemplated this.